Fox's Response To 'Vampires Suck' Leak Makes Even Less Sense Than Response To 'Wolverine Leak'

from the please-explain dept

Thu, Aug 19th 2010 12:24pm — Mike Masnick

Last year, when a workprint of the movie Wolverine leaked, we pointed out that the studio producing the film, 20th Century Fox, could have responded in a way that would have built up a lot more fans, by saying something along the lines of:

Hey Wolverine fans! We know that you're all looking forward to the release of the movie next month. We're excited too! By now you may have heard that an early totally unfinished version has been leaked online. It's missing a whole bunch of stuff -- including some amazing special effects -- and honestly, this version isn't a finished product at all. We think you'll get a much better overall experience by waiting for the full finished product, but we certainly understand that some of you just can't wait (trust us, we feel the same way!). If that's the case, please, feel free to check it out, but please remember that this isn't even close to the final version. If anything, think of this as a "behind-the-scenes" peek of just what a movie looks like before all the real "movie magic" gets put in there. If you do check it out, we hope you'll join us May 1st to check out the finalized version as well on the big screen the way we intended for you to see this awesome movie. It's just a month away!

Instead, they went ballistic, and got the FBI involved and made a big stink about how awful this was. In the end, however, some studies suggested that the leak and all the attention around the leak actually resulted in helping the movie at the box office. The movie did much better at the box office than better reviewed movies that matched multiple characteristics, including having loyal fanbases. There was at least some evidence that perhaps all the publicity around the leak got more people interested in seeing the movie -- even if Fox did little to position themselves to take advantage of that -- as we suggested.

Still, that makes 20th Century Fox's response to the latest film leak even odder. TorrentFreak points out that the Twilight-spoof film Vampires Suck was leaked a few weeks ago -- and perhaps because of the publicity around the Wolverine leak, this time the company is trying to threaten everyone and issue takedowns quietly, instead of going public with their displeasure. But, of course, that hasn't stopped the movie from being available, and TorrentFreak notes over 100,000 downloads of the movie. However, by staying quiet publicly about the leak, it seems like Fox doesn't even get the beneficial publicity. This response seems to make even less sense than the response to Wolverine.

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Filed Under: leaks, movies, vampires suck
Companies: 20th century fox

24 Comments

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TPBer, 19 Aug 2010 @ 12:46pm

Thanx Fox
Again thanx for the heads up on early releases. It's so popular it took all of 23 minutes to DL.
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Anonymous Poster, 19 Aug 2010 @ 12:46pm

You know why they're doing it quietly?

Because the movie's going to bomb, and they don't want to be seen as outwardly defending a movie they know will bomb.
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bluebb, 19 Aug 2010 @ 1:09pm

mistake?
Maybe they think that threatening everyone was not only the cause for the great attention but also the large attendance at the movie theaters. xD
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interval (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 1:32pm

Re:
@AC: "Because the movie's going to bomb..."

That's what I'm talking about. This one has stinkburger written all over it.
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sean, 19 Aug 2010 @ 1:36pm

will they ever learn
when will movie companies learn
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2010 @ 1:49pm

"Hey Vampires Suck fans! We know that you're all looking forward to the release of the movie next month." --- just doesn't have the same ring to it.
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Michial Thompson, 19 Aug 2010 @ 1:54pm

Pot and Kettle
Is't Fox's response kid of a Pot calling the Kettle Black type thing.

They steal the ideas from a number of movies under the terms of "fair use" because their movie is a parity, then the turn around and act like they can bully everyone around.
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kryptonianjorel (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 2:30pm

Re: Pot and Kettle
unfortunately one is legal, and the other is not
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nasch (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 2:42pm

Re: Pot and Kettle
BTW that's "parody" not "parity".

- Spelling Nazi

PS so is he only "little mikee" when you disagree with him?
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2010 @ 2:57pm

I'm amazed 100,000 people are downloading "Vampires Suck". Do people actually want to see this movie?
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ajgajg1134 (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 4:57pm

Valve + Half life anyone?
This story immediately reminded me of the whole issue where some of the source code for Half life 2 was leaked, and was no where near the finished product. Hmm.
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NAMELESS.ONE, 19 Aug 2010 @ 5:25pm

WONDER how many missing children would have been fund if the fbi weren't bothered with this?
YES FOX is THINKING OF CHILDREN again and so are the fbi....
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Karl (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 5:29pm

Re: Valve + Half life anyone?
The story with Valve was a bit more understandable. The hackers didn't just take the beta game, they hacked into personal emails, crashed their servers, etc.

Valve has also been a bit more lenient with the released content, e.g. not going after the Missing Information team for releasing some of the early maps (after the game officially came out).

Of course, I may have more sympathy because I'm pretty sure Half-Life 2 is better than Vampires Suck (or Wolverine, for that matter).
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Karl (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 5:44pm

My pal the cop
I have kind of an interesting story relating to this.

A friend that I went to college with in Indiana, is not a cop. For most of his law enforcement career, his job was to troll chat rooms, pretending to be an underage girl, so that the cops could bust pedophiles.

I once asked him about the FBI arresting file sharers, like the Wolverine guy, and if he had ever been asked to participate in that.

"I would never do anything like that," he said. "Fuck those RIAA guys."
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Karl (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 5:45pm

Re: My pal the cop
*cough* is now a cop.
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Hephaestus (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 5:58pm

Re:
They will probably say "those pirates are responsible for this movie not doing well at the box office", then run the the MPAA and say "here is proof piracy is affecting our industry." It will be used in in reports, and studies to show how piracy is bad.

For all we know it might have been an intentional leak meant to be used in this way.
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Karl (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 8:47pm

Re: My pal the cop
...and, this comment was supposed to be on the "infringement is like child porn" story. Obviously I need to get more sleep.
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Anonymous Coward, 19 Aug 2010 @ 9:10pm

Assuming the accuracy of the article, Fox has every right to be upset at the violation of their rights (while copyright is one right that people may home in on, there is also the separate and distinct right of Fox possessing a trade secret in the material prior to its official public release.

Since the release of trade secret information is at the very least a civil law violation, and in many jurisdictions also dealt with as theft and subject to criminal prosecution, I see no problem with Fox going after at least the tortfeasor, suing his/her sorry a**, firing and blacklisting him/her within the industry, and then filing a criminal complaint with local law enforcement officials (and perhaps even federal officials if federal law is implicated. Merely FYI, there is no federal law pertaining to the misappropriation of trade secret information except in very narrow instances not applicable here.
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Mike Masnick (profile), 19 Aug 2010 @ 11:47pm

Re:
Assuming the accuracy of the article, Fox has every right to be upset at the violation of their rights (while copyright is one right that people may home in on, there is also the separate and distinct right of Fox possessing a trade secret in the material prior to its official public release.

Um. We were not talking about the legal rights. Of course they have the legal right to.

The point is that it's a stupid idea to do so.
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Anonymous Coward, 20 Aug 2010 @ 10:53am

Re: Re:
I understand turning "lemons into lemonade", but I have to ask if there are any circumstances under which you believe a rights holder should go "guns blazing" against a wrongdoer?
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Craig (profile), 20 Aug 2010 @ 12:34pm

Vampires Suck
My friend downloaded the aforementioned movie and watched it last night. Not ever seeing any of the Twilight Saga movies, nor reading the books, the movie didn't make a lot of sense. The young women at the centre of the film was as one-dimensional as a character can be. There are some beer-drinking party things you could use the movie for, like every time the girl tucks her hair behind her ear or when she does that pseudo-confused air talking thing with her mouth.

All in all, my friend emphatically declared that Vampires Suck, does indeed, suck.
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Karl (profile), 20 Aug 2010 @ 4:28pm

Re: Trade secrets
Both this and the Wolverine case seem to me to be particularly suited for trade secrets laws, and/or breach of contract, rather than copyright infringement.

Obviously Congress disagrees with me (as of 2005's ART Act), but I don't understand how they justify this. It's also, um, "interesting" that this act only applies to movies and software, not music, books, paintings, etc...
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monkyyy, 20 Aug 2010 @ 8:36pm

Re: Re: Re:
cp and murder..... in my opinion everything else should be a bit more forgivable then what the law currently says
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Bloodybg, 26 Aug 2010 @ 11:01am

lol funny how they complain but the movie sucked so bad but i bet they would not complain if ppl spent all their moneny on such a bad movie
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